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Ludwigofthepotatoppl t1_j61t7y8 wrote

Reply to comment by xenon54xenon54 in Tennessee says pair gave incorrect execution drug testimony by AudibleNod

Just… nitrogen. You go to sleep, you suffocate painlessly, it’s done. As clean and courteous as the death penalty can be. Still won’t be reversible, so the innocent are still dead, still won’t deter the guilty.

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Caladbolg_Prometheus t1_j61uwam wrote

It’s too clean. In my opinion the strongest proponents of the death penalty want there to be suffering, or at the very least look like the dying man is suffering.

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Ludwigofthepotatoppl t1_j61v9q2 wrote

Those people can fuck a hat. Cruelty in punishment is unconstitutional, as if they could name which amendment states it.

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Pugshaver t1_j62twid wrote

Pretty sure the Supreme Court ruled back in 2019 that cruel punishment is entirely constitutional, it's only punishments that are cruel AND unusual that aren't lawful. As long as it's a common way of torturing someone to death (such as lethal injection) it's totally lawful.

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kandoras t1_j63dzsz wrote

Or since executions are not unusual in the US, it's constitutional to kill people by pretty much any method you came come up with.

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Caladbolg_Prometheus t1_j64iunk wrote

I don’t like your wording. Perhaps you meant something different, and if you did correct me.

Going by your wording since imprisonment is a common punishment, any method of imprisonment is constitutional, even something like a pillory. I can’t see putting someone in a pillory for any long length of time as constitutional.

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kandoras t1_j64jme0 wrote

I don't like the wording of the Supreme Courts ruling either, but it is what it is.

They decided that only punishments which were both cruel AND unusual were unconstitutional. A punishment which was only one and not the other is legally acceptable.

So yes, imprisonment is not unusual, so no matter how cruel it may be, the conservatives on the court have ruled that it is acceptable.

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Caladbolg_Prometheus t1_j657rn4 wrote

I think we are misunderstanding each other because what you wrote here doesn’t line up with what I wrote. Not to say I agree or disagree with you, just I don’t think we are on the same page.

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Caladbolg_Prometheus t1_j61w6to wrote

Hey reform based punishment is unpopular in the states. You got sadistic superheroes like the Punisher who go overboard on the ‘punishment.’ But how often do you hear of a popular film or book that’s all about reforming a violent offender?

Hell it’s political suicide to even look like you are ‘weak on crime.’ People crave blood much more over restitution or rehabilitation.

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kandoras t1_j63dx6j wrote

> Cruelty in punishment is unconstitutional

Technically, per a Supreme Court ruling, the 8th Amendment treats the "and" in "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." as a boolean operator.

Punishments which are merely cruel but not unusual, or unusual but not cruel, are constitutional. It's only a problem when it's both cruel and at the same time unusual.

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exarkann t1_j62ouu3 wrote

Nitrogen is how I want to go when the time comes.

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xenon54xenon54 t1_j6310ca wrote

Sounds like a comfy way to die. But if somebody gets executed, I want everybody to suffer for it. I want the firing squad to look at somebody whose completely helpless and still have to gun them down. I want the jury to look at somebody who already has no chance of harming anybody anymore and to still say their continued existence is violence. I want spectators to every execution, do it in the town square for all I care, so everybody who watches knows that this is how much their fair and unbiased, enlightened liberal state really values their lives.

I do think that bloody, horrific executions are a deterrent: they're a deterrent against executions. They should be (at most) rare spectacles used to excise and obliterate those exceedingly few humans who we have agreed, perhaps on a species-basis, are an existential threat.

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